Theodor Reuss - The True Secret of Freemasonry and the Mystery of the Holy Mass

Theodor ReussOrdo Templi Orientis Gnostic Mass The Secret of Masonry and the Mystery of the Holy Mass1917

Theodor Reuss The Secret of Masonry and the Mystery of the Holy Mass

The ceremony of the holy mass conceals a mystery that few people recognise.
Still even fewer people realize that the mystery of the holy mass and the
true secret of the ancient accepted freemasons, the schismatic Templars,
and the true Rosicrucians, is one and the same secret.

This mystery of the
Mass and true secret of the ancient Freemasons, the schismatic Templars,
the true Rosicrucians, and the Gnostic Neo-Christians, lies in the
communion with God whose symbolic fire the holy mass depicts in its drama.

The declarations and explanations which the Roman Catholic church may give
concerning the essence of the Mystery of the holy mass are incorrect, the
truth being concealed, dismissed, even partly falsified. To be sure, they
are intentionally incorrect, for the spiritual authorities in the Vatican
know the true nature of the mystery and the true meaning themselves. The
lowest Cleric is however, for official reasons, left completely in the dark
concerning the true nature of the mystery. This concealment and
falsification has gone hand in hand with the gradual falsification and
corruption of the whole of original Christianity by the churchfathers. Just
as misleading, however, as the explanations of the Roman Catholic church
concerning the essence of the mystery, are the explanations of so-called
recognised Freemasonry concerning the essence and the "inner work" of
Freemasonry.

The very fewest of Freemasons recognize the true secret of
Freemasonry, and the greater few of those that do recognize it, do not
attempt to really understand what they have discovered or guessed.

As
everyone knows who has dealt with the subject, today every candidate in
England (the motherland of modern recognized Freemasonry) or America
(earlier also, Germany) who wishes to be taken into Masonry must swear a
severe oath. This old english oath (rings) in the German translation:
"I XYZ in the presence of the great architect of the universe hearby swear
most solemnly and sincerely upon the holy script, that I will always hide,
conceal and never reveal any part or parts, point or points of the secrets
of the mysteries belonging to free and accepted Masonry which have been
revealed to me or may be communicated to me in the future, unless it be to
a true and lawful brother or brothers and not to him or them until after
the most ruthless test their of faithfulness. Further, I promise solemnly
that I will never write down these secrets, nor inscribe, hew, draw,
engrave, scribble, cut, scratch, carve or in any other way or manner repeat
or communicate them. It will be further cause or fault, if another do so
when it is in my power to hinder him by anything sensible or insensible
under the canopy of heaven - If anyone in the world understand or be able
to read by or through anysuch letters, signs, or symbols or if our secret
art and our hidden mysteries (through my unfaithfulness) be given to the
profane! All these several points I solemnly swear to observe without
exception, ambiguity or spiritual reserve of any kind, under no less a
penalty than by breaking any of these points to have my throat cut through
from ear to ear - my tongue cut out - my heart torn from my body, my body
cut in two below the navel, my innards ripped out and thrown into the
deepest sea - or tossed out to the vultures to eat. So help me God my oath
to keep faithfully which is the vow of a Freemason."

Thereafter the
candidate must kiss the holy script. It is now clear that every sensible
Candidate who was ever compelled to make such a fearful oath on the bible
has unquestionably expected and must indeed expect, that he will be
thereafter entrusted with fearful secrets and that he will be initiated
into profoundly secret things. To his astonishment, however, every
Candidate, who has been compelled to swear such a fearful oath to be
accepted into Freemasonry, now learns that the whole immense secret lies in
a sign, a grip and a word! Such things which have be printed in so many
books (so-called heretical writings) whose recognition, however, does not
ensure the admittance of the Candidate at once to any Freemasonic lodge
unless he first possesses another special pass or prooves himself through
the payment-receipt of his lodge dues! This situation will almost certainly
strike any candidate after his acceptance and appear very odd to him.

Each Candidate taken into a Freemasonic lodge will say to himself that it
is highly 'overdone' or at least in all cases be compelled to admit that it
is 'carried too far' - to solemnly swear that one would rather have one's
throat cut through - or have his heart and tongue torn out - or have his
body cut in two and his innards thrown into the sea - rather than to betray
the secret of Freemasonry, when this secret consists of nothing more than
how to shake another Freemason's hand, certain rectangular signs made on
the body with the hand and the keeping silent about short syllabled words
which are only to be spelled or halfed words which mean nothing more than,
eg.

"The Lord will raise you up"
"The Lord will strengthen you"
"Raise yourself, you live in the son"
Because now, despite all grumbling and study and promotions in the lodge, a
Freemason, whether in England, America, or Germany, trusts in further
secrets from accepted masonry, or having received them, preserves them
himself, if he has belonged to a lodge for 50 years and in the same way has
reached the highest office and dignity. Most Freemasons lend themselves to
the program just so, satisfied to have joined an exclusive social club
whose membership increases for them many social and material opportunities.
And afterward no longer considering why the ancient ancestors and founding
fathers of Freemasonry actually swore such severe oaths. The oath having
become to them an empty formula.

This mindstate and this mentality of disappointment over the absence of
knowledge and the non-understanding of the grounds upon which the Masonic
forefathers swore such severe oaths was borne out by the German lodges a
hundred years ago, in which time certain German Freemasonic systems such
as, e.g., the Schroeder teaching and the Freiburger teaching shoved off
these old oath formulas and a put a simple promise in the place of the old
severe oath. The old oath became historically communicated only as a sort
of curiosity. This so-called reformation was, in a certain way, really very
logical by the German F.M. intellects who believed to have rightly
recognised that F.M. had and concealed no sort of secrets which could
justify so severe an oath. This reformation, however was, at the same time,
a sad situation for German masonic intellects, when Masonry became seen as
an apparent delusion of non-existing secrets and made an undignified joke
of, all-over.

These conditions and the apparent recognition of the
nonexistence of real secrets lead to the terrible levelling of Freemasonry
in most lands. In the Latin countries the F.M. lodges became political
clubs with the result that it clearly unveiled the world war for all those
who wanted to see it. And still the good honorable intellects of German
masonry were locked in a great big association of error, as they believed
it prooven that F.M. concealed no secret worthy of such an old severe
oath-formula.

The German Freemasons who had changed the old oath formula
were seen as idiots despite their thought and research and their dedication
to Freemasonry. And the idiocy of Freemasonic reformers of that time had
contributed to their followers raising from the non-existence of secrets
really worthy ones to so-to-say "dogma". The dismissing of the old severe
oath would have only been logical, if there was really no secret, no
mystery, whose keeping justified such a severe oath.
And yet - and this may now be said, understood and firmly put forth, - and
yet - Freemasonry DOES conceal a secret, a secret which completely and
fully justifies and demands the swearing of the old severe oath formula.

Only this true secret has been lost to the Brotherhood in the run of time,
or rather better said, on the grounds of appropriateness has been in a
certain time suppressed and foisted out by a replacement "Ersatz"
[substitute] secret. One cannot exactly say that the secret had been
perverted or falsified - one can, however, say that what was once
communicated as secret in freemasonry, is a false secret, and not the real
and true one. The real and true one is still to be recognised and
discovered through and within the symbols used in Freemasonry today. This
is especially the case in the symbology of the higher grades of certain
F.M. systems and programs.

However, as already said earlier, the majority of the few Masons which have
on hand the Freemasonic symbols, who recognise or discover the true secret,
shirk to openly express their understanding, for this admission (and
revelation) would cause them severe shame among their so-called bourgeois
fellow citizens; baptised in so-called respectable behaviour and in
pseudo-morality. The pseudo-sacred public opinion would hand over such
understanding persons to the moral 'death by burning at the stake', just as
they prepared a burning alive at the stake in ancient times for the
Templars.

And since the advent of world domination by the
Christian-Nazarene church the true meaning of the mystery of the sacrament
of the holy mass has been suppressed and resupplied with a replacement
interpretation. The Roman Catholic church molded itself in this way since
the very first century of Christian reckoning and domnation of the Roman
Catholic church in all parts of the world wherever the leadership of the
new Church-Christianity of the churchfathers reached. Fraternities, sects
and secret societies etc. which protected the true meaning of the mystery
of the Mass, were, for the very fact, persecuted through all the centuries
by the ruling Christian church. Any members of these sects and secret
societies were, in the case that they were discovered, immediately
condemned to death.

To these sects and secret societies which protected the
true meaning and interpretation of the mysteries of the Holy Mass belonged
the Gnostics, the Templars, the true esoteric Rosicrucians and the Ancient
Primitive Freemasons. These so called sects and secret societies have
survived to this day despite the persecution and troubles of the centuries.

The Gnostic Neo-Christians or Gnostic Templars of the Orient which are
closely bound to the ancient primitive Templar-Freemasons, guard the true
secret of Freemasonry today which is identical to the secret and mystery of
the Holy Mass.

All people who have recognised the inner falsity of the teachings of the
controlling Christian church, or perhaps only instinctively have sensed the
falsity - far away from all Freemasons - which have recognised and
understood that the present day so-called Freemasonry has fallen from the
true mystic secret, turn their backs to the church and Freemasonry -
disappointed. They see in the modern so called 'recognised Freemasonry', I
must say, a reflection of false things, a society which pretends to fathom
the world-riddle, to aim to teach in high esoteric in deed and truth, but
is nothing other than a good-deeds fraternity and a corporate social club.
Now the practice of charity and general humanitarianism in the material
realm are secondary means to reaching the goal of Freemasonry, also the
reciprical support in the material realm can be seen as a secondary means,
but with the persecution of this helpful means and with the turning back of
the inner education of the brothers, the main objective and principal work
is completely lost in oblivion and the word is lost.

* HERE THE MANUSCRIPT BREAKS OFF *
Ed.: thanks to the unknown brother for the translation and to Evangelos
Rigakis, commissioner of this English translation.